Generally, service providers seek to link a customer's identity with unique identifiers, e.g., telephone numbers and email addresses, to facilitate communication with the customer. The service provider could be a hospital, bank, cable/dish TV operator, social network, content and gaming service provider, utility company, etc. Since mobile phone penetration across world economies has become so high, and given the proximity of mobile devices to customers, a registered mobile number (RMN) has become an attractive medium for communicating with customers.
Service providers use RMNs for several purposes. Among these are identifying a customer, ordering new services, providing a service, sending alerts and reminders, and sending promotions. However, existing RMN arrangements suffer from several drawbacks that limit the utility of RMNs in several ways. Among such drawbacks are: unreliability (e.g., the maintenance of updated information is up to the customer, who may neglect or forget such tasks at critical times); cumbersome logistics within a family having multiple phone connections; misuse of a customer's mobile number involving unsolicited communication by third parties; the lack of a complete service view of the customer; lack of verification of the registered number; inability to accommodate multiple customers with respect to one user; inability to exploit multiple communication channels (such as email and social networks) to reach a customer; and an overly limited role for an operator in aiming to mediate between a customer and a service provider.